Somebody Else’s Mess

Thomas Friedman, New York Times
George W. Bush delivered his farewell address on Thursday evening — handing the baton, and probably the next election, to the Democrats.

Why do I say that? Because in his speech to the nation the president basically said that on the most important, indeed only, legacy issue left in his presidency, Iraq, there would be no change in policy — that a substantial number of U.S. troops would remain in Iraq “beyond my presidency.” Therefore, it will be up to his successor to end the war he started.

“In one fell swoop George Bush abdicated to Petraeus, Maliki and the Democrats,” said David Rothkopf, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, referring to Gen. David Petraeus and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. “Bush left it to Petraeus to handle the war, Maliki to handle our timetable and therefore our checkbook, and the Democrats to ultimately figure out how to end this.”

The sad thing for the American people is that we have no commander in chief anymore, framing our real situation and options. The president’s description on Thursday of the stakes in Iraq was delusional. An Iraqi ally fighting for “freedom” against “extremists”? There are extremists in the Iraqi government, army and police. There is a civil war on top of tribal, neighborhood and jihadist wars, fueled not by a single Iraqi quest for freedom, but by differing quests for “justice,” revenge and, yes, democracy. The only possible self-sustaining outcome in the near term is some form of radical federalism.

We also do not have a commander in chief weighing the costs of staying in Iraq indefinitely against America’s other interests at home and abroad. When General Petraeus honestly averred that he could not say whether pursuing the surge in Iraq would make America safer, he underscored how much the war there has become disconnected from every conceivable worthy goal — democratization of Iraq or spreading progressive governance in the Arab-Muslim world — and is now just about itself and abstractions of “winning” or “not failing.”

That is why I thought the most relevant comments from the Petraeus hearings last week were those offered by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, when he said at the outset:

“We must begin by considering the overall security of this nation. It’s our responsibility here in Congress under the Constitution to ensure that the United States military can deter and if needed prevail anywhere our interests are threatened. Iraq is an important piece of the overall equation, but it is only a piece. There are very real trade-offs when you send 160,000 of our men and women in uniform to Iraq. Those troops in Iraq are not available for other missions.”

While Mr. Bush’s tacit resignation last week greatly increases the odds of a Democratic victory in 2008, there are several wild cards that could change things: a miraculous turnaround in Iraq (unlikely, but you can always hope), a terrorist attack in America, a coup in Pakistan that puts loose nukes in the hands of Islamist radicals, or a recession induced by the meltdown in the U.S. mortgage market, which forces a stark choice between bailing out Baghdad or Chicago.

The first three, for sure, could propel the right Republican candidate right back into the thick of things — especially if the Democrats have not positioned themselves with a credible approach to Iraq and the wider national security issues facing the country.

There is an opportunity now for Democrats, and Americans will be listening — but they need to articulate a concrete endgame policy, and it would have to include at least three components:

First, a detailed blueprint with a fixed withdrawal date tied to a negotiation with Iraqi factions on a federal solution tied to a military redeployment plan to contain the inevitable spillover from Iraq.

Second, a commitment by the next president to impose a stiff tariff on all imported crude oil, to make sure we become less dependent on what is sure to be a more unstable Middle East as we leave Iraq. And third, a plan to deal with the broader terrorist challenge. Set a date. Set a price. That will get people’s attention.

Democratic candidates have been talking about health care and other important issues, but the overriding foreign policy message that still comes across from them to many Americans, argues Mr. Rothkopf, is that Democrats are simply “anti-Bush, antiwar and antitrade.” Be careful: despite the mess Mr. Bush has made in the world, or maybe because of it, Americans will not hand the keys to a Democrat who does not convey a “gut” credibility on national security.

Photo of the Week

Steelers win 26-3, move to 2-0

Steelers move to 2-0 on this young season against the Buffalo Bills. Steelers were lead by another impressive show on defense which has aloowed ten points after two games. Offensively, Pittsburgh was lead by "Fast" Willie Parker with back to back 100 yard games 23 carries for 126 yards. Big Ben passed for 242 yards and 1 TD. Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Picks of the Week

College Football
#22 Tennessee at #5 Florida = In the Swamp it's the GATORS!
#10 Ohio State at Washington = It will be close but no cigar for the Dawgs, OSU wins!
#1 USC at #14 Nebraska = Defense, defense, defense...USC will be victorious.
Fresno State at #19 Oregon = Oregon gets a scare but wins....
Idaho State at Oregon State = OSU back on track after their poor outing in Ohio

National Football League
Buffalo at Pittsburgh = Steelers start 2-0...Bills are beat up from Denver last week
San Diego at New England = Patriot Gate, gives NE "us against the world" edge against SD
New Orleans at Tampa Bay = Saints score points and a win in Florida
Dallas at Miami = Dallas is rolling out of Miami 2-0
Seattle at Arizona = Bad luck follows 'Zona...Seahawks win

Your thoughts fellow prognosticators?!

Why they should stay

For all General Petraeus's spin, Iraq is still a violent mess. That is why America should not leave yet

POLITICS, said the late John Kenneth Galbraith, is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. The problem for America in Iraq is that it is agonisingly difficult to tell which is which.

General David Petraeus, America's senior commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, its ambassador, went to Capitol Hill this week to tell Congress that bringing the troops home too soon would result in disaster. The general took along a flipchart of tables purporting to show that the “surge” of recent months was beginning to work (see article). The ambassador said he could not guarantee success but that if America gave up now the consequences would be massive human suffering, the intervention of regional states and gains for Iran and al-Qaeda. Continue at The Economist...

A Humbled President

He seemed almost broken to me. His voice raspy, his eyes watery, his affect exhausted, his facial expression almost bewildered. I thought I would feel angry; but I found myself verging toward pity. The case was so weak, the argument so thin, the evidence for optimism so obviously strained that one wondered whom he thought he was persuading. And the way he framed his case was still divorced from the reality we see in front of our nose: that Iraq is not, as he still seems to believe, full of ordinary people longing for democracy and somehow stymied solely by "extremists" or al Qaeda or Iran, but a country full of groups of people who cannot trust one another, who are still living in the wake of unimaginable totalitarian trauma, who have murdered and tortured and butchered each other in pursuit of religious and ethnic pride and honor for centuries. This is what Bush cannot recognize: there is no Iraq. There are no Iraqis. There may have been at one point - but what tiny patina of national unity that once existed to counter primordial sectarian loyalty was blown away by the anarchy of the Rumsfeld-Franks invasion. The president's stunning detachment from this reality tragically endures - whether out of cynicism or delusion or, more worryingly, a simple intellectual inability to understand the country he is determined that the United States occupy for the rest of our lives. Read on...

Credit for Beginners

Economics lesson for Friday September 14, 2007, click here.

Left Attack on Petraeus Poses Problem for Democrats

The Democrats, especially the Democrats running for president, have a problem, and his name is Petraeus.

In two days of hearings on Capitol Hill, he probably didn’t change any of the views held by members of Congress about the war in Iraq. But he almost certainly impressed a lot of people sitting at home by displaying all the traits Americans hope for in a military leader.

He was, to put it simply, good, a man who came across as brave, honorable, and true, and that’s the problem.

On Monday, the day Petraeus was to begin his testimony, in the great tradition of Washington politics, MoveOn.org blasted him before hearing a word of it. In a full page ad in the New York Times, that became the talk of Congress, the talk shows, and cable news (as it was supposed to), the liberal group accused Petraeus of "cooking the books," and charged that he was betraying the American peoples' trust by spinning the facts to support the White House.

That is, by the way, how MoveOn itself summarized the ad, in an email to its supporters sent the next day, giving notice that it wasn’t backing down. Read more of Susan Estrich

A New Strain of Anti-Semitism is Spreading

Who recently said: "These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War (1). Why? Only to build Israel."

Some holdover Nazi?

Hardly. It was former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey, a NATO ally. He went on to claim that the Jews -- whom he refers to as "bacteria" -- controlled China, India and Japan, and ran the United States.

Who alleged: "The Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs."

A conspiracy nut? Answer

US Senate Race, Oregon 2008

In Oregon, the concept of doctor-assisted suicide is not a revolutionary idea. The notion that the government ought not mess with someone's guns is also well within the mainstream. The state has an income tax, but no sales tax, and anyone who tries to change that will bring upon themselves the combined wrath of Oregon's approximately 3.5 million, mostly socially liberal, fiscal conservative voters.

Divided roughly a third of the width of the state by the Cascade Mountains, there are strong conservative areas in the eastern high desert, though new transplants from California are giving Democrats a chance in state legislative elections in wealthy Bend, in the middle of the state. Those conservatives are outnumbered by liberal Portland, a town that epitomizes the concept of a Pacific Coast liberal bastion.

The combination of four straight Democratic presidential wins, a Democratic governor since 1986 and four Democrats out of five congressional representatives would seem to preclude national Republicans from having so much as a hope of picking up a Senate seat. Instead, the state is home to a long tradition of moderate Republican statesmen, including former Appropriations Committee chairman Mark Hatfield and Republican-turned-Democrat Wayne Morse.

It is no surprise, then, that Gordon Smith...read on

Oden To Miss Season

Celebrated Trail Blazers rookie center Greg Oden, the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, will likely miss the 2007-08 season after undergoing knee surgery Thursday, the team said.

Doctors found cartilage damage during an exploratory procedure, and team physician Dr. Don Roberts performed microfracture surgery to repair the damage.

"There are things about this that are positive for Greg," Roberts said in a statement posted on the Trail Blazers' Web site. "First of all, he is young. The area where the damage was is small and the rest of his knee looked normal. All those are good signs for a complete recovery from microfracture surgery."

Seven-footer Greg Oden will spend pretty much all of his first season in the NBA on the Trail Blazers' bench.

The 7-foot center is expected to be on crutches for up to eight weeks. A full recovery likely will take six to 12 months, the team said. Read more at ESPN

Portland: What are these people looking at?

As the sun sets each night in September, Portlanders flock to Chapman school to watch the Vaux's swifts swirl and roost in the school's big brick chimney. Elaborate picnics unfold. Frisbee games and footbag start up. Kids charge around making friends out of strangers.

Iraq Through China’s Lens

It’s nice to be in a country where Iraq is never mentioned. It’s just a little unnerving when that country is America’s biggest geopolitical and economic rival these days: China.

I heard China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, address an international conference here in Dalian, and what impressed me most was how boring it was — a straightforward recitation of the staggering economic progress China has made in the last two decades and the towering economic, political and environmental challenges it still faces.

How nice it must be, I thought, to be a great power and be almost entirely focused on addressing your own domestic problems?

No, I have not gone isolationist. America has real enemies that China does not, and therefore we have to balance a global security role in places like the Middle East with domestic demands.

But something is out of balance with America today. Looking at the world from here, it is hard not to feel that China has spent the last six years training for the Olympics while we’ve spent ourselves into debt on iPods and Al Qaeda.

After 9/11, we tried to effect change in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world by trying to build a progressive government in Baghdad. There was, I believed, a strategic and moral logic for that. But the strategy failed, for a million different reasons, and now it is time to recognize that and focus on how we insulate ourselves from the instability of that world — by having a real energy policy, for starters — how we protect our security interests there in more sustainable ways and how we get back to developing our own house.

By now it should be clear that Iraq is going to be what it is going to be. We’ve never had sufficient troops there to shape Iraq in our own image. We simply can’t go on betting so many American soldiers and resources that Iraqis will one day learn to live together on their own — without either having to be bludgeoned by Saddam or baby-sat by us.

So either we get help or get out. That is, if President Bush believes staying in Iraq can still make a difference, then he needs to muster some allies because the American people are not going to sustain alone — nor should they — a long-shot bet that something decent can still be built in Baghdad.

If the president can’t get help, then he has to initiate a phased withdrawal: now. Because the opportunity cost this war is exacting on our country and its ability to focus on anything else is out of all proportion to what might still be achieved in Iraq by our staying, with too few troops and too few friends.

Iraqis can add. The surge has brought more calm to Iraq largely because the mainstream Iraqi Sunnis finally calculated that they have lost and that both the pro-Al Qaeda Iraqi Sunnis and the radical Shiites are more of a threat to them than the Americans they had been shooting at.

The minute we start withdrawing, all Iraqis will carefully calculate their interests. They may decide that they want more blood baths, but there is just as much likelihood that they will eventually find equilibrium.

I have not been to Dalian in three years. It is not just a nice city for China. It is a beautiful city of wide avenues, skyscrapers, green spaces, software parks and universities.

The president of Dalian University of Technology, Jinping Ou, told me his new focus now is on energy research and that he has 100 doctoral students dealing with different energy problems — where five years ago he barely had any — and that the Chinese government has just decided to open its national energy innovation research center here.

Listening to him, my mind drifted back to Iraq, where I was two weeks ago and where I heard a U.S. officer in Baghdad tell this story:

His unit was on a patrol in a Sunni neighborhood when it got hit by an I.E.D. Fortunately, the bomb exploded too soon and no one was hurt. His men jumped out and followed the detonation wire, which led 1,500 feet into the neighborhood. A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter was in the area and alerted the U.S. soldiers that a man was fleeing the scene on a bicycle. The soldiers asked the Black Hawk for help, and it swooped down and used its rotor blades to blow the insurgent off his bicycle, with a giant “whoosh,” and the U.S. soldiers captured him.

That image of a $6 million high-tech U.S. helicopter with a highly trained pilot blowing an insurgent off his bicycle captures the absurdity of our situation in Iraq. The great Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi said it best: “Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes.”

That is where we are in Iraq. We’re wasting our brains. We’re wasting our people. We’re wasting our future. China is not.

Iowa vs. America

In America, Hillary Clinton holds a solid and enduring 15- to 20-point lead over Barack Obama, who, in turn, enjoys a 2-to-1 advantage over John Edwards, who languishes in third place. But in Iowa, Edwards is often in first place in the polls and, at best, Hillary is locked in a three-way tie with her rivals.

In America, Rudy Giuliani continues to lead the Republican field while Fred Thompson edges past the ill-fated Mitt Romney and the snakebit John McCain. But in Iowa, it is all Romney all the time as the former Massachusetts governor, riding a wave of paid television ads, has first place all to himself and has been atop the Iowa polls for four or five months. Meanwhile, Arkansas's former governor, Mike Huckabee, way down in the national polls, is surging in Iowa and now boasts 14 percent in the polls. Ahead of McCain, he is challenging Thompson and Giuliani in the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

So which is reality? To read the rest of Dick Morris's article click here.

Sen. Obama (D) and Sen. Hagel (R)

Today the Senate hearings continued with Petraeus and Crocker and it heated up with some outstanding rhetoric from the left-side and right-side of the aisle, click Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel to view their assessment of the non-strategy in Iraq. What your thoughts with regard to the comments made by Obama and Hagel?

In Search of a GOP St. George

Iowa Republicans will tell you that the Devil does not wear Prada; she wears a pantsuit, low-heeled shoes and a sunny, I-told-you-so smile. Karl Rove insists that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a "fatally flawed candidate," and many Democrats agree. In a new book, "The Neglected Voter," journalist David Kuhn charts the party's waning appeal among white men—a debilitating trend Clinton seems ill-suited to reverse. But Iowans aren't reassured by Rove or flow charts. They assume Clinton will be the nominee, and, with typical earnestness, are searching for the right Saint George to take on the dragon lady. More of Howard Fineman's article from Newsweek...

The Road to Partition

Musawi’s words are just one more piece of evidence that Iraq will not be put together the way it was. It’s one more piece of evidence that America’s best course is not to reunify Iraq, but simply to inhibit the violence as Iraqis feel their own way to partition.

What we’re really trying to build, in other words, is a road to partition. We’re trying to build a pathway to separation that involves the sort of low-intensity civil war that Iraq is enduring right now. We’re trying to prevent a pathway that is even worse — a high-intensity genocide.

As I was watching yesterday’s hearings, I was thinking of the sensible yet sectarian Musawi. How many American lives is it worth to save those like her? Is it realistic to think U.S. troops can help Iraqis move on that less barbaric path? To read more of David Brooks thoughts...

In Memory of...

How do you feel our government has done in its efforts to capture and bring to justice Osama Bin Laden?

Mt.Hood, Oregon

Mt Hood, Oregon from Lawrance Lake Rd

Steelers Bruise Browns, 34-7

The Cleveland Browns opened the season with hopes of a successful season but those hopes quickly turned into a chorus of boos as their offense struggled against a Steeler defense that looked like they were in mid-season form recording six sacks in the game including collecting five Brown turnovers. The Steeler offense was outstanding early as they took advantage of a short field multiple times and lit up the scoreboard with 17 points in the first quarter. Overall, Ben Roethlisberger threw for four touchdowns, a career high for Big Ben and on the ground "Fast" Willie Parker ran for 109 yards. Next week the Steelers home opener has the Buffalo Bills coming to Heinz Field. The Buffalo Bills lost their home opener 15-14 as Jason Elam kicked a winning field goal as time expired to give the Broncos the win. Steelers 1-0!